David Doucette
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Making meads can get expensive, not to mention time consuming. Good quality varietal honey can be pricey and meads may not reach their prime until 7-12 months. A lot of people I see end up aiming for these high ABV (16-18%) sack meads. They throw in 4 pounds of honey per gallon and some Champagne yeast.
About 8 months later the posts usually looks like this;
"Help!!! My mead tastes terrible, should I dump it?" The answer is no, but you do need to wait another 6-12 months. I'm not knocking high ABV meads, but I am saying if you sign up to make one, you should sign up to wait a while until you drink it while you're at it. So at the other end of the spectrum is this topic. Hydromels, or light/ session meads. These meads range from 6-9% ABV, but don't let the lower alcohol fool you, as they can be just as flavorful and complex as full strength meads. Let's look at some of the benefits of making hydromels.
Less cost for experiments or batch trials: Let's say you want to try a new honey varietal for a traditional mead. You can expect to pay almost half of what it would cost to make a standard strength mead. This is a good thing since you don't know if this new ingredient or honey will be a good candidate. If it is, you can step up it's use on a future batch with confidence. As an example, you can make a 1 gallon hydromel with roughly 1.5-1.75 pounds of honey.
Less time to produce a finished mead: There are only a handful of recipes that are over 10% ABV and are finished in under 3 months (JAOM and BOMM) come to mind. But most if not all hydromels can be completed in a 45-90 day window, which can help ease the burden off of getting into mead making (who wasn't first turned off by possibly having to wait months upon months to be finished). As long as you still follow some kind of nutrient schedule, your mead can finish ferment and clear very quickly, without leaving behind any harsh alcoholic notes or yeast stress off flavors to be aged out.
You get to drink more: Go ahead, split that 750ml with someone on a work night. Need I say more?
So now we've gone over the why of making hydromels, so let's go over the how. In essence, they aren't very much different from making a standard mead. I however usually load all my nutrients in one addition at the same time as yeast pitch. I also don't use a full dose of nutrients as the yeast don't typically need it. Even the humblest of wine or beer yeast can take your must to dry in just a few days. For this reason you don't need to do a staggered nutrient addition. Your ? sugar break will likely be passed overnight and your yeast will miss a meal.
Now there are some downsides to hydromels. They typically have a much lighter body than their full strength counterparts. This can be addressed with some maltodextrin or glycerin. Both are neutral flavored and will address body issues in any wine. This also makes hydromels a good candidate for a dry champagne-like carbonated mead. Like I said earlier, this variety of mead is just as limitless as a full strength mead. Here are a few recipes for inspiration.
Spiced Mead
Cinnamon Clove Spiced Hydromel:
Strawberry Mead
Strawberry Currant Hydromel:
This is just the tip of the iceberg in sessionable mead making. Try adding exotic fruits or steeping specialty grains. Make a dry batch, and back sweeten it with different varietal honeys to get a feel for them. Whether it's for experimentation or pure enjoyment to be repeated again and again, hydromels make an excellent tool in your arsenal.
If you're wondering about how much honey you need for certain ABVs / gravities, I've included a chart I made. This chart shows the pounds of honey, the starting gravity and the ABV if it were to ferment to 1.000 (per gallon). Then if you want to make a larger batch, you can just multiply. Like all homebrewing, going in with some kind of plan is always wise.
***
For more from David make sure to catch him at his blog, Hive Mind Mead,and follow him on Twitter.
About 8 months later the posts usually looks like this;
"Help!!! My mead tastes terrible, should I dump it?" The answer is no, but you do need to wait another 6-12 months. I'm not knocking high ABV meads, but I am saying if you sign up to make one, you should sign up to wait a while until you drink it while you're at it. So at the other end of the spectrum is this topic. Hydromels, or light/ session meads. These meads range from 6-9% ABV, but don't let the lower alcohol fool you, as they can be just as flavorful and complex as full strength meads. Let's look at some of the benefits of making hydromels.
Less cost for experiments or batch trials: Let's say you want to try a new honey varietal for a traditional mead. You can expect to pay almost half of what it would cost to make a standard strength mead. This is a good thing since you don't know if this new ingredient or honey will be a good candidate. If it is, you can step up it's use on a future batch with confidence. As an example, you can make a 1 gallon hydromel with roughly 1.5-1.75 pounds of honey.
Less time to produce a finished mead: There are only a handful of recipes that are over 10% ABV and are finished in under 3 months (JAOM and BOMM) come to mind. But most if not all hydromels can be completed in a 45-90 day window, which can help ease the burden off of getting into mead making (who wasn't first turned off by possibly having to wait months upon months to be finished). As long as you still follow some kind of nutrient schedule, your mead can finish ferment and clear very quickly, without leaving behind any harsh alcoholic notes or yeast stress off flavors to be aged out.
You get to drink more: Go ahead, split that 750ml with someone on a work night. Need I say more?
So now we've gone over the why of making hydromels, so let's go over the how. In essence, they aren't very much different from making a standard mead. I however usually load all my nutrients in one addition at the same time as yeast pitch. I also don't use a full dose of nutrients as the yeast don't typically need it. Even the humblest of wine or beer yeast can take your must to dry in just a few days. For this reason you don't need to do a staggered nutrient addition. Your ? sugar break will likely be passed overnight and your yeast will miss a meal.
Now there are some downsides to hydromels. They typically have a much lighter body than their full strength counterparts. This can be addressed with some maltodextrin or glycerin. Both are neutral flavored and will address body issues in any wine. This also makes hydromels a good candidate for a dry champagne-like carbonated mead. Like I said earlier, this variety of mead is just as limitless as a full strength mead. Here are a few recipes for inspiration.
Spiced Mead
Cinnamon Clove Spiced Hydromel:
- 1 Gallon
- 1.5 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
- 2 Tablespoons Vanilla Rooibos Tea (23 fl.oz Brewed)
- 1 Cinnamon Stick
- 2 whole cloves
- Muntons Ale Yeast
Strawberry Mead
Strawberry Currant Hydromel:
- 1 Gallon
- 1.25 pounds Orange Blossom Honey
- 20 ounces of Red Currant Jam
- Yeast : Red Star Pasteur Red
- Starting Gravity: 1.056
- Secondary: 1.5 Pounds Strawberry Puree
This is just the tip of the iceberg in sessionable mead making. Try adding exotic fruits or steeping specialty grains. Make a dry batch, and back sweeten it with different varietal honeys to get a feel for them. Whether it's for experimentation or pure enjoyment to be repeated again and again, hydromels make an excellent tool in your arsenal.
If you're wondering about how much honey you need for certain ABVs / gravities, I've included a chart I made. This chart shows the pounds of honey, the starting gravity and the ABV if it were to ferment to 1.000 (per gallon). Then if you want to make a larger batch, you can just multiply. Like all homebrewing, going in with some kind of plan is always wise.
***
For more from David make sure to catch him at his blog, Hive Mind Mead,and follow him on Twitter.
